“For a woman somewhere in St. Louis, this shirt is a tampon,” is the startling slogan for a new campaign called This is a Tampon. Depicting a fist clutching a tampon, the shirt is one way St. Louisans are making efforts to address period poverty.
Two-thirds—64 percent—of low-income women in St. Louis “were unable to afford menstrual hygiene supplies such as pads or tampons at some point during the previous year,” is what a 2019 study from Saint Louis University’s Anne Sebert Kuhlman found, with “21 percent of women lacking supplies on a monthly basis.”
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Angela Bode read the numbers off to Meghan Cahill in the elevator ride up to work one morning. “Then the elevator doors opened and we walked off like, ‘We must change [this],’” Cahill says. They researched and found Jessica Adams, who since 2014 has been operating St. Louis’ only diaper bank and launched St. Louis Alliance for Period Supplies as one of the bank’s initiatives just last year.
“It’s this notion of silent suffering that is so deeply troubling,” says Cahill. “It’s this notion of passing a person on the street thinking: ‘How many people are silently suffering with this issue in our city?’ It’s really troubling. And that’s where you just want to scream it from the rooftops.”
So Bode drew the design—the fist, a nod to the women’s rights movement, the tampon, something they admit they were worried people would shy away from wearing but have been met with overwhelming support. Cahill handled the language, settling on “This is a tampon”—”We wanted something to show like, this is a crisp, clean T-shirt that you pulled out of your drawer. That’s what makes it so much more painful to look at. It’s the realization that it doesn’t matter, whatever fabric it is—it can be brand new, could be super old—someone is using that,” Bode says. Together they pitched local company Arch Apparel—who now sells the T-shirts with all proceeds going back to Adams’ St. Louis Alliance for Period Supplies. They are also the duo behind the campaign’s Instagram.
Food pantries and food stamps don’t cover things like diapers and period supplies, Adams says, because offering those products would diminish a family’s purchasing power for actual food. “So there really has to be a different fix to make these basic needs and personal care items more accessible to families,” she says.
Sponsored by U by Kotex, the Alliance collects tampons, pads, and panty liners and will distribute to partner organizations in the St. Louis area closer to summer. Currently, the Alliance has roughly 250,000 supplies in the warehouse they moved into on April 8. The new space has made them, in square footage, the largest diaper bank and period supply charity in the nation.
The Alliance is in its pilot, Adams says. Soon, the organization will roll out applications for those in need and is looking to partner with local schools to provide first period kits and education.
“The response that we get from the community is ‘Oh my God, finally. Thank you, somebody is thinking about this,’” Adams says. “It’s such a huge problem, and Anne [Sebert Kuhlman]’s research really illuminated what a huge problem it is.”
So what’s taken so long? “People don’t want to talk about periods,” Adams says, “or vaginas, or women’s issues. I mean, that might be a little edgy to say, but diapers and period products don’t get talked about because women are the ones who handle that stuff.”
It’s why she finds the shirt’s image so compelling. “It honestly makes me want to tear up,” she says.
But the three add that the issue is multifaceted and doesn’t affect just women. “We like to say ‘people with periods,’ knowing there are trans men in the community. I think about if its a trans man living in Middle America—who’s passing as a man—a leak could not only be embarrassing, but dangerous for that person,” Adams says.
The campaign has launched donation boxes. Some are currently located in stores including Golden Gems, Arch Apparel, Hello Juice & Smoothie, with the hope that it will “spread like wildfire,” with more businesses and organizations wanting their own box. In addition, they’re accepting donations of hygiene products and bags to use for supply kits.
“To end period poverty is really a two-pronged thing,” Adams adds. “To provide the products is important, but if the conversations don’t change, and the stigma isn’t lowered, then period poverty will always be a thing.”
